


Just Try To Hold Still

by freightcarbarnes



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Monsters, Other, Shadow Monster | Mind Flayer Possessing Billy Hargrove, Tentacles, not yet but soon, pretty boy gets ruined, seriously, smut is coming, this about to start a messed up relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-04
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2020-10-10 03:21:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20521097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freightcarbarnes/pseuds/freightcarbarnes
Summary: Billy Hargrove encounters the Mind Flayer...





	1. A Fractured Camaro

**Author's Note:**

> More chapters, (with some smut included,) coming soon! <3

Dirty blonde curls crested a cut, square jaw, stubble shaved into a tight moustache framed full, pink lips and a pair of crystal blue eyes stared into the rearview mirror of a classic ’79 Camaro.

Billy Hargrove was admiring his perfectly coiffed looks, running lines he’d shortly use to seduce Mrs Wheeler. The mid-30’s mom had been flirting with him at every moment, spending days at the pool shooting suggestive looks over tinted sunglasses. Since their first meeting, in her dimly lit kitchen, Billy had been feeding into her suburban escapist fantasy. A young, athletic man, with a fast car and something to prove - every frustrated housewife’s dream. Him and Mrs Wheeler - it had just been a matter of time.

“Hey Karen—“ a plump tongue pressed playfully against his perfectly whitened teeth, “You don’t mind if I call you Karen, do you?”

Butter. She’d melt into his hands like _butter_ on a hot day.

All at once, Hargrove’s sordid daydream shattered. _Something_ hit the windscreen, a terrific velocity destroying the glass of his beloved vehicle and forcing him to swerve and brake violently into the nearby gravel driveway of the steelworks. Tyres squealing against asphalt and grit, the speeding car smashed hard against foliage and concealed brickwork, throwing Billy’s head against the interior of his window.

Vision blacking for a few moments, the downed driver raised an impact-fogged head to survey the damage. Aqua eyes settling on the demolished glass ahead of him, Billy grumbled disappointment into the hot air of the crashed car.

“Oh no— No, piece’ve shit—!“ Hands reached out to pound at the unresponsive dashboard, the movement sending a pulse of pain radiating across his forehead. Fingers coming up to touch at the source, he found a fresh wound — impact from the window — blood spilling and trickling down his forehead. This was _not_ a good look for his impending night’s activities. “_Shit_.”

Angrily shoving aside his door, the shaken teen crawled out onto the gravel pathway. Small stones pressed into his palms as the cold night air brushed golden curls and bloodied forehead alike. Rising to stand, Billy stumbled around the perimeter of his precious Camaro. Surveying damage and whispering curses under his breath, he tugged violently at the doors — nothing. Despite his additional pounding, swearing and yelling, the exterior of the vehicle was damaged enough to completely prevent access. Sending a boot hard into the rear of the car, Hargrove snapped a defeated “piece’ve _shit_—!” before returning to the windscreen to identify the reason for his vehicular wipe out.

Soft, grey smoke rose from the hood of the car, ghosting along the shattered glass. Leaning in close, Billy expected blood, feathers, fur. The remnants of an animal, parts of a carcass demolished at high speeds.

Instead, fingers extending to swipe at the material, he found _something else_.

Transparent, almost gluey in consistency, an entirely unfamiliar substance. It didn’t look, at least to Billy’s eyes, like anything he’d seen before, nor the leftovers of an unfortunate beast that crossed his speeding path. Pressing the unusual fluid between his fingers and deep in a well of confusion, the nearby scuttling of an unseen creature caused the car-wrecked blonde to snap his vision back to his midnight-dark surroundings.

“Who’s there—?” The questioning shout was confident, arrogant. Despite the undoubted advantage of whatever, or _whoever_, lurked nearby, Hargrove was nothing if not blindly self-assured. Peering into the dark bushes opposite, leather boots took one, two steps towards the offending concealed noise-maker.

Voice louder, bolder, brash and aggressive, “Hey — I said, _who’s there_!?”

Almost in startling response, an almighty grip yanked the bolshy teen down to the hard ground. Leather and skin tore across the pebbled driveway, hands clawed to gain resistance and the almighty drag forced sandy locks to obscure Billy’s vision entirely. Unable to turn and face his captor, unable to even consider the possibilities, he could do nothing but flail and reach for _any_ kind of hold.

With panicked yelps beginning to form in his throat, Billy’s vocal terror was cut abruptly short by a sudden, violent knock to the head. Metal walling reverberated as the teen was swung into it, the impact busting open the skin at his temple. Crying out in surprise and pain, choking on the dust kicked up by his relentless captor, Hargrove yelped and cried all the way into the dingy metalworks building. Even there, with pebbles and dirt forced into the skin of his hands, throat raw from unbridled screams of terror and protest, Billy had nary a moment to consider what _exactly_ was pulling him so ferociously across the ground.

Only as his struggling, powerless body approached the back of the vast main room did the arrogant teen manage to reach out, hands clasping the top pillars of a stair bannister. The force wrapped tight around his ankle hauled against him, and with rapidly weakening fingers, Billy resisted. Mouth splitting into a deafening, savage scream of refusal, the hidden grip dragged him harder, faster and tighter, until his weakened body submitted and crashed down, step by step, the metal stairway.

~ ~ ~

As soon as his blurry gaze cracked open again, Billy was met with a thumping pain in the back of his head. Cranium now aching all over, the impact of the crash combined with being thrown around the steelworks left the disheveled boy confused and disoriented. Squinting into the inky blackness of the basement and spitting out blood spilled from his rough tumble down the metal stairs, he cautiously moved his head to try and locate the source of the strength that pulled him into the dusty depths below the abandoned building.

With the minimal light seeping through cracked half-windows, Billy could barely make out something dark and wet curled around his ankle. Pulling himself up to sitting, head spinning from the exertion, the teenager’s eyebrows furrowed tight together.

“What— the _fuck_—?”

Reaching out two tentative fingers, the blonde cautiously swiped across the offending black mass. Pulling his hand back, he squinted at the substance coating the slick object - transparent, almost gluey in consistency — **_wait_** — _this was the fluid that dashed across his car windscreen_.

Icy blue eyes widening in the darkness, mouth dropped open as a sharp inhale caught his lungs, his hesitant touch broke into a violent, rapid grab of the offending tendril. Pulling once, hard, Billy’s attack was met with a severe response.

Sudden, easy, like a butcher’s knife carving into meat, the mass around Billy’s ankle fought _back_. Deep, serrated edges punctured the flesh of his leg, forcing an ear-splitting yelp of pain from the frantic Hargrove. Both hands meeting to tear at the offending creature, his strength did little to deter the beast, who’s invasive barbs planted deep into skin and muscle.

“Fuck—_fuck_—!”

As the slicing pain threatened to force tears from Billy’s crystalline eyes, every length of muscle tensed and fighting back, a brand new sensation tore his attention away. Hot, wet and _moving_, unnoticed in his ragged agony, more inky black lengths had crawled across his body. Both his ankles were bound, another stroked the length of his wrist, whilst one more meandered between his fingers. With warring sensations beginning to smother his lithe body, he’d had little time to consider what _the fuck_ exactly this creature was — too wet to be an insect, too fluid to be a mammal, Billy was lost. _Had all of this been a car wreck-induced nightmare?_

Attention bought aggressively into startling technicolour, the air was once again stolen from the teenager’s rapidly respiring lungs — the black, wet tendrils had moved _under his clothes. _

Eyes bulging once more, Hargrove began to push, pull and yank at the offending lengths.

“Get off—! _Get_— —“ His protest was interrupted by the rending of his denim jeans, fabric splitting along his shin as the black mass forced it’s way in at the ankle, “My fuckin’ jeans — you piece’ve shit—!”

Fibres frayed and tore as the blackness slithered inside his jeans. Leaving wet drags in its wake, more moved beneath the sleeves of his jacket, up his arms, another finding the entrance at his waist, beneath his t-shirt. Gasping as more slick licks met hot, smooth skin, Billy’s protests had devolved from words into stifled grunts and half-yelps, hands still frantically chasing the offending tentacles.

The darkness surrounding Hargrove only provided multiplying tendrils. They pulled at Billy’s wrists, and bound his aggressive hands to the hard floor beneath him. More covered his feet and ankles, holding him tight to the ground and unable to fight back. Screams erupted from his raw throat as more jagged barbs tore into his legs, his stomach, claiming each inch of flesh as the teenager lay defenceless in their grasp.

With a furious, frustrated cry, denim ruptured across his thick thighs. His shirt lay torn and split across the chest, and three new lengths had crawled around his throat, the edge of one beginning to slide onto his pretty, panicked face. Leaving a trail of the transparent fluid across his bloodied cheek, the black mass crawled, slowly, across Billy’s lips. Grimacing, shouting and pulling away proved futile, as the force parted his mouth and pushed inside, crawling over his tongue and into the back of his throat.

Screams devolving into muffled wails, icy eyes grew wide and horrified. The black mass _filled_ his throat, wet against wet, pulsating, Billy choking around it. As it pushed further, deeper into him, his lithe body began to convulse, skin slicked with the slimy deposits of the unseen creature. Blonde hair fell in wet curls around his face, his torn shirt sticking to skin and tentacle alike, and a battered, bruised and bleeding face spluttered breathlessly around the length violating his mouth. It was here, with his eyes beginning to roll, stars speckling his vision once more, that the abused teenager considered his death imminent. _All this, he thought, for a middle-aged hook-up._

As consciousness faded to black, body giving over entirely to the basement-dwelling nightmare, a rapid movement gave way to a burst of sudden, precious oxygen. The offending length now missing from his mouth, Billy blinked himself alert, coughing, spluttering, body reflexively twitching and flinching as barbs detached and slick tendrils retreated. All at once, as if the entire scenario had been a concussion-induced fever dream, the blonde was freed of his assault. Forcing himself up, with his vision barely recovered, Hargrove scrambled towards the metal steps he’d been pulled down. Hands and feet kicking up stones and dirt, rough whimpers left a molested throat as he clambered back towards the low light of the Steelworks warehouse.

Bottle green light dappled the dusty, rat-infested floor of the warehouse, as Billy Hargrove stumbled hastily to his feet. Tripping, falling, as a low, bubbling growl sounded close behind him, wide, petrified eyes dared to stare back to the stairway he’d just ascended. It only took a moment, one glance in that fateful direction, before the teen was back on his feet, racing out into the courtyard housing his busted Camaro.

Billy stumbled into the brisk night — his shirt lay open, torn across his chest, denim jeans equally wrecked. Blonde ringlets clung, sweat-drenched, to his face, skin smeared with each messy trail of transparent fluid from the creature’s penetrating grasp. With the blood at his forehead rapidly drying, lips still slick with the tentacle’s secretions, the usually put-together hunk looked positively undone.

Throwing himself into the vehicle, shaking hand immediately finding the gearstick, the terrified teen stamped hard on the accelerator, forcing the car to squeal away across the gravel. Panting, whimpering through the raw pain in his throat, he propelled his beloved Camaro towards the singular, poorly lit telephone box at the end of the road.

Breaks screeching, Billy darted from the car through the clouds of kicked-up dust. Yanking the glass doors of the phone box aside, he’d barely made it into the confines of the unit, before he was grabbing the receiver and shakily, frantically, hammering the buttons.

9-1-1. A dial tone. Thank **_God_**.

_“911, what’s your emergency?”_

Leather and skin tearing across a pebbled driveway. The skin at his temple splitting open as he hit a wall.

Dust. Metal stairs. Darkness.

As silence hung in the air between Billy and the operator, he noticed the pains dotted across his torn flesh from razor-sharp barbs. As a cold breeze brushed the interior of the phonebox, he felt the wet trails of his tentacled attacker peppering his skin. As he breathed heavy into the receiver, his mind wandered to the monstrous mass, and how it’d forced itself inside of him, thick and aggressive — With lips parted in dawning horror, the wrecked teenager struggled to form words to explain his attack.

The voice in his ear slowed and deepened as the circular light overhead began to flicker and fade. Within seconds, the questioning operator had stalled to a crackling growl, and the yellow-orange of the phonebox clipped out to suffocating blackness. Clumsily replacing the receiver, Billy stepped out of the unit, eyes wide in the pitch, searching for — _something_. Wide blue stared into the oppressive midnight, skin springing with goosebumps as the air dropped five, ten degrees in an instant, his dusty leather boots crunching across blackened ground. The hazy headlights of his battered car illuminated an atmosphere dashed with floating debris, skin-like shreds floating amongst the damp scent of rotting vegetation.

With his mouth dropped open in confusion, debating the possibility that this was all the visions of an afterlife caused by his car crash, Billy moved cautiously towards the dull sound approaching him. Footsteps, hundreds of them, marching in unison, an unseen army stepping through the fog. Dark silhouettes drew closer, as the arrogant teen offered a question into the night.

“What d’you want—!?”

Three steps closer, a fear-induced arrogance growing with each movement.

“_Hey!_ I said what d’you want—!?”

Squinting, he dared more steps towards the approaching shadows. The brisk air bit at his exposed chest, sweat from just minutes prior left him damp and cold, and each silent moment that passed fuelled a frightened frustration for answers.

Gathering all the volume left in his raw, violated throat, Billy yelled again.

“I said, **_what do you want_**—!?”

Thunder and lighting crashed overhead, a jagged, white fork piercing through crimson red clouds. Ominous black and vibrant ruby swirled in a fearsome sky, the rotting smell now accompanied by a fierce, aggressive and **acrid** burning.

The blonde’s eyes remained laser-focused on the leader of the shadowy group. Narrow legs carried the mysterious dark figure closer, an overwhelming wave of discomfort accompanying his approach.

_Dirty blonde curls crested a cut, square jaw, stubble shaved into a tight moustache framed full, pink lips and a pair of crystal blue eyes stared into the _ ** _deepest recesses of Billy Hargrove’s soul._ **


	2. Liquid Chemicals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hargrove suffers nightmares, hot flushes, and a curious desire for bleach.

_“I want to build.” _

His voice had been deep and slow, and it echoed with an otherworldly quality that made Billy’s skin crawl.

Even here, waking in the middle of the night, alone, Hargrove’s skin prickled with goosebumps and a cold sweat that ran the length of his back.

Since his bizarre encounter hours prior, his crash, seeing _himself _reflected in the impossible darkness, the blonde teenager had struggled to sleep. The night had forced vivid nightmares into his mind, moments relived. Whether it was the choking, slick length in his mouth, the ominous crimson lightning, the car crash impact, or staring into the eyes of his mysterious doppelgänger, he was left awake and panting in the early hours of the morning.

Sitting up, Hargrove plunged his sweat-dampened head into his trembling hands. A thin, white wifebeater clung to his muscular upper-half, grey boxers covered his lower, and his sheets were pulled and twisted up to his middle.

_He couldn’t understand._

Then, now, his shadow had told him to build, but_ Billy didn’t know what that meant_.

He didn’t understand the request, nor what he’d seen.

He hadn’t processed the oral onslaught he’d suffered in the dingy basement of the steelworks. He hadn’t seen a doctor about his crash-induced concussion, nor the wounds left by the barbs plunged into his body. Billy hadn’t so much as uttered a word to _anyone_. He was, though he’d never admit it, **scared**. Scared and alone, and increasingly, obviously, **unwell**.

Alongside a sleepless night, the high schooler couldn’t concentrate. He felt underwater, unable to hear, his vision blurred, as if covered in a slimy film. The slightest temperature change left him sweating, burning from the inside out, and his hunger was phenomenal. No matter how much food he managed to consume, he never felt full. The hunger, violent and demanding, was _always there_… And he was beginning to notice cravings for more unusual things.

Billy’s tongue longed for the chemical burn of bleach.

His taut stomach craved splashes of pool cleaner, his nose begged for the sweet scent of ammonia.

These things, he knew, were not normal. These things, he knew, should **not** be consumed.

Yet his body **_ached_** for them.

Sometimes, he could swear he felt movement inside him. Alien, pulsating and unnatural, hidden just beneath his tanned skin, as if threatening to burst free at any moment. He was sure, from the corner of his eye, he’d caught bulging portions of his flesh as something moved, unseen, inside his body. The wounds left by the vicious barbs had already begun to blacken, hot and rotting and occasionally, just for a flash, his surroundings harboured the same skin-like debris as this fateful night at the steelworks… And perhaps, most frighteningly of all, the guttural, moist growl of his attacker echoed deep within his skull.

~ ~ ~

Chlorine, sunscreen, summer-baked concrete.

Hawkins Pool was packed. Children and adults littered the turquoise water to escape the oppressive heat, whilst rows of gossiping mothers lay cooking on plastic loungers. The shrill whistle of the lifeguard, Heather, cut through the dense air to discipline wayward teenagers, and the din of the locals socialising filled the space between.

Billy’s feet stepped hastily across roasting concrete, arm outstretching automatically to pull the iron gates separating the public from the storeroom. He’d barely slept the night prior, and was running almost entirely on autopilot. If it weren’t for the dense fog of exhaustion, the lack of autonomy might have concerned him.

Moving deftly across the small, dark room, the teenager headed directly for the hefty bottles stored on the middle shelf. Bleach, ammonia, pool cleaner and disinfectant — the private back room was filled with litres upon litres of liquid chemicals.

His lack of sleep, the cravings, the eerie voices that seemed to slip from sleep to waking; all of it, led him here. To the back wall of the storeroom, his hand clasping the handle of the largest bottle of Sodium hypochlorite. Blue eyes hazy and distant, plastic container rising to meet his lips, the detached lifeguard took one, two, _three_ almighty swigs of the poisonous liquid.

The chemical burnt his mouth — his tongue and lips tingled, his throat stung enough to make him choke, but the overriding satisfaction made the teenager hum around the plastic bottle. As if necking water on a boiling day, Billy felt every inch of his body praise him for the craved poison. Preparing to intake his fourth swig of the toxic chemical, he let out a fulfilled sigh — only to hear a soft voice sound from behind him.

“_Billy_—?”

Slowly replacing the bottle, lips still wet and engorged from the corrosive beverage, Billy allowed the approaching woman to continue. Her voice was gentle and detached, more of a faded memory than a present conversation.

_“I— I understand that you’re angry with me. I just… I wanted to explain — why I didn’t come last night.”_

The teenager’s skin prickled and perspired. Sweat dashed his upper lip, a wet glow in the yellowy, artificial light of the storeroom. _Last night_. His memory, a barrage of flash bangs, _tendrils, pain, choking._

_“It’s not you! It’s just—“_

Her words were drifting further, out of the room, across the chlorinated pool, out into the suburban streets of Hawkins. With each moment, the speech made less sense, and he felt a dark, uncomfortable curling in the pit of his stomach.

_“I have a family…”_

Veins rose on his forehead, sweat prickled over every inch of his skin, and each rotting, blackened invasion began to knaw at his body. Trembling, Billy’s hands curled tightly into fists, fingernails pressing half-moons into his palms. The stink of rotting vegetation and acrid burning invaded his senses, and, as if still laid in the basement of the steelworks, he felt imaginary tendrils slide along the inside of his thigh.

_“And I can’t do anything that will hurt them…”_

His face slick with sweat and the remnants of devoured bleach, glistening tears sprang to the corners of his eyes. The tension in his stomach mutated into an unbridled anger, violent and rising with every precious moment. As though controlled by an unseen force, Billy felt the muscles in his biceps twitch and flex.

_“You understand that, right? But I shouldn’t’ve said that—”_

Visceral, overwhelming and all-encompassing, Billy saw his harrowing future laid out before him.

A fast spin, a rising hand throwing Karen’s head into the closest shelf — knocking her unconscious, killing her, he didn’t _know_. Her delicate body fell hard against the concrete floor, blonde curls obscuring her pretty face as blood began to pool from her head. Her turquoise and magenta swimsuit starkly contrasting the bored greys of the storeroom, he’d hit her hard enough to cause permanent damage.

** _“Billy—?”_ **

Confused, petrified tears rolled down his cheeks — a crushing moment of weakness from a body controlled by _someone else_.

_“Billy—? Please—Will you talk to me—?”_

Breath hitching in his bleach-burned throat, the arrogant teenager tried to force the emotion away. Using every ounce of fleeting strength, he swallowed tears, attempted to settle his breathing and regain control of his rapidly deteriorating self.

Turning quickly, Hargrove was met with the wide, concerned eyes of Karen Wheeler. Alongside the motherly worry, (which Billy found both troubling and appealing all at once,) her chemical blonde curls sat neatly atop her head, gaudy, white plastic earrings clung to her lobes and a soft shade of pink covered pouting lips. Typically, his gaze would have fallen to her exposed chest, the delicate swoop of her neck, perhaps her impossibly long and slender legs, but instead, he focused damp, crystal eyes firmly on her face.

His voice, low and rasping from the consumed pool chemicals, offered a pointed and deliberate warning.

“Stay away from me, Karen.”

Striding past the confused woman, Billy’s shoulder knocked threateningly into her’s. Even this close, the sweet smell of her perfume did little to mask the vile burning still flooding his nose.

Stepping out into the bright pool area, flashes of intense light assaulted Billy’s pale blue eyes. As he stepped past a wall of admiring young women, he glanced into the cobalt sky — perhaps, he thought, it was merely a side-effect of stepping from the relative dark of the storeroom, into the beating sun of the Hawkins afternoon. But the heat felt _overpowering_ — it was enough to make the teenagers’ minimal black vest and red shorts seem almost like winter wear, smothered and suffocating. The blinding light reflecting off the surface of the filled pool made him dizzy and disoriented, and the barrage of greetings directed at him sounded monstrous — they carried the same otherworldly essence that his midnight clone had spoken with.

Reaching the plastic haven of his lifeguard chair, Billy climbed into the beautiful, reassuring darkness of the red parasol. Now, the Hargrove boy was not unfit — in fact, he boasted a rigorous workout routine. A short walk, from storeroom to chair, should not have left him heaving for breath, burning up beneath the summer sun… Yet his skin was dripping, perspiration beading on loose strands of his hair, soaking his clothes through. Damp and exhausted, the troubled teenager leaned back in his chair, settling himself entirely beneath the shady umbrella, as the effects of the night’s broken sleep began to take hold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Your comments and kudos absolutely make my day.  
And those of you waiting for smut - don't worry, it's coming! ;)


	3. “Billy, are you okay—?”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Billy & Heather's unfortunate meeting in the Hawkins Pool showers.

Pool-blue eyes shot open, wide and confused, barely an hour later. Every inch of Billy's skin was drenched in sweat, sticking his shirt to his back and wet curls to his forehead. Even his intentionally sculpted facial hair was speckled with perspiration, his light dusting of freckles lost beneath tepid drips. Brows furrowed as Billy looked out across the crystal clear water of the swimming pool — it took him a few moments of glancing between frolicking kids and sun-soaked teens to remember exactly _where_ he was. Work. Lifeguard. _Hawkins Pool._

Almost in an attempt to remind him of his hijacked body, Hargrove’s stomach suddenly cramped and squeezed around the bleach he’d swallowed earlier. Having shredded his throat raw, the corrosive liquid was now burning his guts, forcing his body to tense and flinch in response. His hands followed suit, fists clenching and unclenching as his body attempted to process the undigestible poison.

Trying to breathe around the pain, the teen sat back into the shade of his fire red parasol. Only then, as he shifted back in the seat, did the skin near his elbow painfully drag across the summer-heated metal rests of his chair. Inhaling a sharp hiss, Billy pulled at the offending site, squinting at the damage — a _burn_, wide and red and devastatingly angry, ruptured veins spidered out in every direction. The top few layers of skin had been razed away, leaving an open, festering and _painful_ wound. The skin along the back of his arm was similarly scarlet, and when he pulled his arm close to his face, he was certain he could hear flesh **_sizzling_**.

Sweating, burning; he needed to _cool down_. He couldn’t jump in the chlorinated pool with an open wound like that, so, stumbling down from his lofty lifeguard pitch, Billy set his squinting sights on the showers located just across the way. Bare feet met baked concrete as the blonde dipped his head against the fiery onslaught of the midday sun, blonde curls shining golden in the bright light. His usually strong legs felt weak, heavy and clumsy, as he stumbled his way across the poolside, gaze pitched downwards to evade the blinding sunlight. Misjudging his distance, focused entirely on the promise of an ice cold shower, the disoriented teen slammed hard into an oncoming patron, knocking a cooler spiralling across the ground. As ice and canned beverages span across the concrete, vague sounds of disdain emanated from the man he’d run into, followed by a distant, echoing question from beside him.

_“Billy, are you okay—?”_

_~~~_

Clammy palm reaching and yanking at the vinyl curtain, the suffocating, sweltering Billy Hargrove walked headfirst into the shower cubicle. Hand instantly finding the metal tap and turning it on, he stepped under the heavenly burst of ice cold water, letting it cascade over his head, hair and face, before soaking through his minimal uniform. As delightful rivulets of glacial water spilled over him, finally offering some relief from his baffling burning, he spread both palms on the cool wall opposite, panting relieved breaths into the private space before him.

Finally able to focus, the handsome blonde’s mind returned to the violent burn on his elbow. The cool water was certainly helping, and with his crystal gaze turning to survey the damage, Billy slowly reached towards the raw wound.

_It moved._

It _fucking_ moved.

Blinking once, twice, Hargrove was certain his eyes were deceiving him. Perhaps it was the shadowy corner of the private cubicle. Perhaps he was sick, hallucinating. Maybe the Sodium hypochlorite was finally poisoning his body. Exhaustion, the heat, goddammit, **_anything_**. _Something_ had to explain the horror crawling around his forearm.

Watching, horrified, as blackened veins spidered across his flesh, Billy’s opposite hand reached to disbelievingly poke at the otherworldly nightmare. As wet fingertips met with raw skin, a **_deafening_** bellow suddenly erupted in his ears, eyes instantly squeezing shut to brace against the head-splitting sound. It seemed to fill every inch of him, burning and fierce, acres of forest razed to ash in an instant, humanity wiped out in one rabid bite, everything there is, or ever was, annihilated by one, almighty and cruel God. Both hands rose to clamp over Billy’s ringing ears, trying to find protection from the aggressive onslaught that began within him. Whatever supernatural wound crept along his arm was moving faster, harder, enough that he could feel veins rupturing in its wake, flesh bursting, as he yelled and cried against the warring sensations. When his eyes stayed closed for more than a moment, his vision was filled with legs as thick and tall as skyscrapers, darker than any night he’d ever seen, blood red lightning surrounding the ungodly skull of his master. This vision, the midnight aggressor, the demonic spawn that crept through mind and body alike, the creature that forced him to imbibe _bleach_, was becoming an increasingly recurrent visitor.

Sliding down the slick tiles of the shower cubicle, Billy’s fingernails scraped at the cacophony trapped beneath his golden curls. Turning himself inwards against the wall, the troubled teen prepared to draw his head back. He’d crash it into the porcelain in an attempt to rid himself of the nightmare — even physical pain, a concussion and bleeding, would be preferable to this horrific onslaught.

“_Billy_—?” 

All at once, the sounds **stopped**. The almighty bellowing, the monster behind his eyes, it halted. Almost thrown off by the whiplash of it, the flaxen haired boy inhaled a wet, choking gasp and scrambled back against the far shower wall, eyes rising wide to find the source of his name. Had it been another imaginary call?

Olive skin, defined eyebrows and big, brown eyes. Soft, pink lips and tiny, silver balls tucked into ear lobes. A voice, a face, it was one he knew — _Heather_.

Staring hard into her face through falling water and sodden strands of wavy hair, Hargrove let out little more than ragged, exhausted breaths. It looked like Heather, sure — but could he believe _anything_ right now? Could this be another trick? Or a confusing, hazy vision of his future, like the one with Mrs. Wheeler? It was then, as his crystal eyes squinted out at the fellow lifeguard’s visage, that she spoke again.

_“Take me to him.”_

_What? _Her voice sounded lower, echoing, like the sounds he’d heard just the night prior. For a moment, even with the cold water still falling overheard, he could smell that burning vegetation stink, see the wafter-thin debris floating in the dank air around him. Yet, just as quickly as it appeared, all of his nightmarish signals blinked away.

“What?” Water splashed off his lips — it tasted like rotten seaweed.

_“I said, are you hurt—?” _

His throat burned, tongue acrid with battery acid.

_“What’s going on? I heard screaming—“ _

All over, his skin raised into goosebumps. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up straight. The crawling wounds peppered over his body began to gnaw and ache.

_“Should I call an ambulance—?”_

Billy’s fingers curled tightly into the flesh of his thighs, fingernails pressing half-moons into his tanned skin. And again, as if still laid in the basement of the steelworks, he felt those invasive tendrils begin to slide along the swoop of his throat.

Teeth clenching against his invisible abuser, jaw tense from the exertion, glistening tears sprang to the corners of his eyes. The knotted ball of fear and tension in his stomach began to unfurl and rot into anger, violent and rising with every precious moment. As though controlled by an unseen force, Billy felt the muscles in his legs twitch and flex, the length of his back begin to unfurl.

By the time his fingers released their petrified grip on his legs, his consciousness was already beginning to black out.

He didn’t feel his bare feet slide against the wet tiles.

He didn’t realise he’d lunged, in one swift movement, towards the concerned Heather.

He didn’t notice his hand extending, reaching, wrapping hard around her throat.

It was as though, in those crucial, violent moments, that someone else took control of his body. Piloting flesh and muscle to complete it’s dark deeds, his otherworldly aggressor flashed vibrant and screaming in his head as his arms and legs moved without his will. Strong biceps pushed the choking, helpless female lifeguard against the wall of the cubicle, his other hand effortlessly tugging the curtain closed. She struggled, of course, but Billy couldn’t feel it. Her thin arms and legs clawed and beat and writhed, but he didn’t notice. Her soft voice broke into strangled yelps underneath his crushing grip, but all Billy heard was _static_. When her wide, brown eyes rolled upwards, the flesh that housed both Billy Hargrove and his mysterious passenger did not feel sympathy. There was no regret, or fear, no care for the waifish young woman falling unconscious against the tiles. The skin of Billy Hargrove felt **_nothing_**.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Heather! Up next, Billy takes his captive to the Mindflayer!


End file.
